The Playfish Banker of Pet Society: Live from London

During my visit to the Playfish headquarters, I had a chance to talk with Catharina Mallet, the Product Manager of Pet Society. A Swedish-American with a background in finance, Mallet is relatively new to London (she's lived there about a year) and even newer to the gaming world (she joined Playfish about two months ago).

What does the Product Manager do, exactly? Mallet replied that she's "looking after the coordination process between the development and the art, and making sure that everything goes smoothly. But a big part of the job is like being 'the central banker' for the game. It's doing pricing, making sure that the exchange rates are right, and making sure that 'the taps and the sinks,' or the ways to earn money and the ways to spend money are in reasonable balance."

She admitted that sometimes, her team's predictions are off the mark, as in the case of the Limited Edition Peter Pan statue, which was pulled out of the shops due to lagging sales.

During our interview, Mallet also talked quite a bit about how the company relies on crowdsourcing and feedback from players to develop new features in the game. In the video below, she tells us about the Volcano Mask that was released after the Icelandic eruption.